


What We Fight For

by DistantStorm



Series: The Last Safe City [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, The Last City, The Red War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 03:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16756978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: Zavala comes to Hawthorne's aid.





	What We Fight For

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended listening: "The Lion's Heart" by Audiomachine

He feels it more than sees it.

It’s an all consuming feeling - both icy hot and fiery cold. Like every piece of himself is breaking apart and rebuilding. He finds his feet with an agility he hadn’t realized he lacked, his eyes hyper focusing on enemies in the distance as if they’re flagged for him.

 _They are_ , comes a quiet voice, inside his head. Three shots bark out in the distance. _We did it, Guardian_.

The Light.

It thrums against his rib-cage like a second heartbeat.

The Light is back.

Ikora stands straight, and Cayde’s limbs are made new. They look to him. He nods. They will win this war. The Red Legion don’t stand a chance-

There’s the sound of live fire, then a roar, off in the distance. It sounds victorious.

“That was the last one,” One of the scouts says quietly.

The rest of them look to the first. “You were counting?” A woman asks quietly.

“Yeah.” The first ducks his head. “She’s out.”

The Vanguard trio turns their heads to the the scouts. The contrast between Guardian and Human has never seemed less but felt like more. They’re ragged, torn clothes, breathing hard, covered in dirt, grime, and blood. The touch of battle. Equals in their fight.

Their comms crackle through their Ghosts.

 _“You’ll never win, you bastards. You saw it too.”_ She grunts to the Cabal chattering angrily in the background. _“The Guardians are coming for you and they have their Light back.”_ Suraya Hawthorne is the very voice of humanity. She has been their hope, guiding them when the Light could not find a way. Her words inspire, even now. _"So go ahead. Kill me. You don’t stand a chance.”_ Her voice is laden with determination. She stares into the face of death with honor and dignity.

He moves without thinking, running and leaping into the air, no intent to hit the ground. He lands on a building nearly a block away, taking no damage in the twenty foot drop to its flat roof. That isn’t his focus right now. He feels, in the place where he’s always felt, his Ghost doing her thing, scanning for energy signatures and hostiles and anything of great interest.

He catapults upward as his ghost marks his target. He does not call for the light so much as he feels it come over him: like a wave with the intensity of a bolt of lightning, like coming home. This feeling pales in comparison to the first time he’s called on his innate abilities. This means something. So much more than any other. He’s bled for this Light. He was willing to die for this Light.

He sees the first bolt of arc energy streak up his arm as he swings his fists down. His body erupts, propelling him toward the ground below. He knows his purpose. Honor is his armor. He shoulders his duty gladly.

The bladed weapon clatters to the ground, the Cabal around her vaporize into hot blue-white light. He brings his fists down again. Again. Again. The entire battalion fall prey to his might, the ones not vanquished by his Fists of Havoc meeting his shoulder and hurdling back against buildings before they fall limp and still.

The area is clear for now. When he turns back to her, she is half upright and propped against the scored brick wall of a decimated building. Her face is mottled with bruises, her torso laden with one good slash among burns and others that look like they came from a Legionary’s blade. Her gaze follows him as he moves toward her, fierce and bright. Proud.

She is proud of him, he realizes, with a warmth that blooms somewhere deep inside him.

No sooner than he realizes that does she slide down the wall, smearing blood and grime on the brown brick as she falls. He is beside her in a heartbeat, eyes wild with concern. A gaze downward reveals the tricky bullet holes he’s missed in his first assessment. Her chest heaves with exertion as she speaks.

“Finish the fight,” She says to him, dark eyes looking up at his brilliant ones, imploringly.

“Not without you.”

“For me,” She amends. There’s no way she can fight now. “For us. For all those who would see us fail.” Her hand cups the side of his face, and he nods heavily against calloused fingertips. “I’m a survivor,” She tells him, not that it abates his worry. “They need you, Commander. Give ‘em hell.”

Two of her scouts come barreling around the corner to find her struggling to get to her feet behind a glowing blue barricade, sidearm in one hand, rifle slung behind her. They look around her at the scattered residue of bodies and battle. Each of them sling one of her arms across their shoulders.

“It’s something, ain’t it,” The one says, looking up at the Traveler alive. The other is listening to the war cries of revitalized Guardians as they take the fight to the enemy.

“Yeah,” She agrees with a grunt. “Looks like that big white ball isn’t through with us yet.”


End file.
